Friday, May 25, 2012

Animals as Leaders is a progressive metal band formed by Tosin Abasi. Hearing this song makes me think this guy has 4 hands. I can't believe somebody can move their fingers and hands so fast and yet not just up and fly away. I thought Yngwie Malmsteen was fast.

It was announced today that Kerry Wood is set to retire very soon, most likely after he pitches one more time. That will happen sometime during the Crosstown Series against the Cubs and White Sox.

During his heyday, Sammy Sosa was the most popular Cub. But he wasn't the most revered Cub.

That title belonged to Kerry Wood.

A true professional in every sense of the word, he never displayed any negative emotions except recently when he left a ballgame and threw his glove into the crowd. That was frustration of his own failure and wasn't aimed at anyone else. Being hurt probably has a bit to do with that.

Most fans of the game believe Don Larsen's perfect game in the World Series was the best pitched game ever.

I don't agree.

I believed the best game of pitching occurred in May of 1998. A twenty year old from Texas with DNA borrowed from Nolan Ryan showed the world what it meant to be in the zone and at the top of your profession.

After the first couple innings you could see the look in the eyes of the Astros players and see they were defeated before they even stepped in the box for their second at bats against this kid.

What Kerry did to the Houston Astros on that cold, dank, typical spring day at Wrigley was nasty.

Apparently, he was given the ok to use a wiffleball during the game.

9innings

0 hits

20 strikeouts

0 walks

1 badly scored dribbler of a hit that was ruled a hit instead of the error it was.

The most impressive thing of that day was his curveball. There's only been one curve since I saw that game that even comes close to his-Rick Ankiel. His curve was breaking 20 inches that day and the last strikeout and out of the game was a ball that started out heading for the inside part of the plate then breaking to the left handed batting box-still probably the greatest pitch I have ever seen.

It was a wiffle ball.

Here's to Kerry Wood. For bringing pride and honor to the Cubs for all the time he was here.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

It's dog eared, creased in six places, smells like a 50 year old hymn book and I wouldn't have it any other way. It's supposed to look like that. The kid who had this card definitely shuffled through his cards on a regular basis.

My second oldest card:

1958 Topps

It's in about the same shape so this card could have belonged to the same kid.

The set in the Willie Mays contest was correctly identified as 2000/01 Fleer Tradition Glossy Basketball by Chunter and his alter ego Chunter. A two blog collector that will come at you from the right and the left. You can't stop him, you can only hope.........alright, I'm done.

Here is the set:

2000/01 Fleer Tradition Glossy

And here is a pic of how curvy they are:

Anytime a card can stand on its own two feet you have to admire that.

And here is a bad pic of the gloss:

A simple fix would have been a single coat of varnish to the backs or heavier stock.

Over at Nick's ridiculously awesome blog he made a post about why we write. I won't tell you why I write right(is that some kind of pun?)here because I said why in all the comments I dropped on his comments section of that post(sorry Nick).

He also brought up the subject of comments(or lack thereof) on some posts. I had that same feeling when I made a huge, studied post and no one said a word. Could also just be my fabulous writing abilities(for a fifth grader).

But I realized there is a reason why most of our posts don't get comments:

Don't restrict people from making them.

What that means is relax your commenting security. Just a bit. I have found that sometimes when I go to comment and I fill the comment in and then the crapcha comes up I don't feel like trying to read that gibberish with these blind eyes and just forget about the comment.

My blog isn't read that much so that might be why I don't have one single spam comment yet. But here is what I have set up so commenting is easy for the reader and safe from most spamming at the same time. Go to your Blogger Dashboard or settings page and go to the settings link on the bottom left.

Here is how I have it setup for better commenting for the reader with a good shield against spam:

Who can comment? Registered User-Includes Open ID

Comment Moderation? -Never

Show Word Verification? -Never

That's how I have it on my blog and I haven't had one instance of spam or abuse.